Chapter 4

The Sound Patterns of Language (2)

Suprasegmentals
— Phonological phenomena that are larger
than a single sound, the “segment”;
syllables, stress, and intonation.
1. Syllables
— Basic unit of speech generally containing
only one vowel sound (nucleus) and also
possibly an onset and a coda (called rime)
— Many phonological processes refer to the
syllables of words
— Children (and adults) manipulate syllables
quite skillfully in all sorts of ways.
1.1. The structure of the syllable
— Languages have varying syllable structures.
— Onset: consonant(s) at the beginning of a
syllable
— Rime: vowel and any consonants following it
at the end of the syllable
— Syllable (=σ)

onset rime

C C V C
nucleus coda
— Nucleus: vowel that is the minimum unit of the rime
and is the heart of the rime
— Coda: consonant(s) at the end of the rime
— Vowels are almost always the nucleus of a syllable; but
there’re syllabic consonants …
— In English, an onset can consist of a cluster of
consonants:
- /fl/,/sp/, /tr/ (CC: stop, fricative + liquid, glide
/s/+ vl.stop, nasal)
- /spl/, /spr/, /skr/, /str/, /skl/(rare, sclerosis)
(/s/ + /p,t,k/ + /(l),r,(w),y/)
(exception: */stl/,*/spw/,/stw/))
(splash, spring, scream, strick, sclaff, spew, skwat…)
1.2. Phonotactics
— Branch of phonology dealing w/ natural and
unconscious restrictions on the permissible
combinations of phonemes in a lg
- E.g. /spl…/ vs. */pls../ vs. * /…spl/)
- E.g. /sIŋ/ vs. */ŋIs/
- E.g. kicked /kIkt/ vs. */kt…/

- Syllable has an important role w.r.t the

phonotactic constraints in lgs. (bl- vs. bm;
*bmit/submission)
— Slips of the tongue reveal our knowledge of
phonotactic constraints:
— Scratching Daddy’s back (Intended): /skræ.čIŋ dæ.diz/
Snatching graddy’s back (Actual): /snæ.čIŋ græ.diz/

— /kr/ ~ /d/
— But, /sd/ is not a possible combination in English.
— Alveolar stop /d/ à alveolar nasal /n/ (i.e. the only
voiced alveolar allowed following /s/)
— Thus, /skr/ à /sn/
— Velar /k/ à /g/
— Even when we “mess up” we don’t violate our
language’s phonotactic constraints.
Further examples:
(i) play the victor à flay (*vlay) the pictor
(ii) sphinx in moonlight à
minks in spoonlight (*sfoonlight)
— Rime
— V + C (e.g. bat)
— V + CC (e.g. toast, lift, kicked)
— V + CCC (e.g. wasps)
— V + CCCC (e.g. prompts, sixths)

- The only sound that cannot occur in English codas is /h/.

- Double codas:C1=nasal & C2=obstruent
(except, /d,z, ǰ,mb, ŋg,mv,nð)
C1 =/s/ & C2= -voice stop
C1 =liquid & C2= any consonant except for /z,
ž, ð
C1= -voice non-alveolar stop (i.e. /p,k/) & C2=
-voice alveolar obstruent (i.e. /t,s/). Also /ft/
— Complex codas and onsets
— Speakers often reduce clusters.
e.g.) first grade /fʌrs gred/ (i.e. rst à rs)
e.g.) sixths /sIksθs/ à /sIks/ (for most
speakers, except in careful speech)
— Word-final consonant clusters reduction:
In many AmEng dialects (including African
American English and Navajo English)
e.g.) desk /des/, toast /tos/, walked /wak/
— Sensitive to morphological info (conveyed
by grammatical markers), e.g. walked as
/wak/ is less common.
1.3. Children’s syllables
— Children acquiring English and other
languages prefer CV syllables and alter
many syllables to make them conform to
that structure.
— CVC à CV (e.g. cat /kæ/, play /pe/)
— Deletion of unstressed syllables (e.g.
banana as /nænə/, potato as /dedo/ or
/dedə/ (w/ voicing assimilation too))
— Reduplication
- doubling of a syllable
- common syllable structure in children’s
lg
- e.g) water as /wawa/, biscuit as /bebe/
— Case study of consonant cluster
reduction: Jack (age: 2.5~3.5)

- See data (p. 125)

- What do you think is going on? …
- Adults: /p, t, k/ are allowed following /s/
syllable-initially (e.g. stop, spot, skate);
sonorants may follow /s/ (e.g. slide, sway,
snake, smile)
- Jack: only a sonorant is allowed to be the
second consonant in the initial consonant
cluster; deletion of /s/ when C2 is
obstruent. (e.g. spoon /pun/ vs. slide /slayd/)
— Even when children alter their
pronunciation of syllables, they are doing
so in a rule-governed, patterned way,
thereby illustrating their sophisticated
command of the lg even though it does
not yet match an adult version of the lg.
— Syllabification => 3 steps
1)모음
2) 두음
3) 말음
— open vs. closed syllables
1.4. Syllable structure variety
— Maori: CV is the basic syllable structure
(single consonant onset)
— CV: the most common type of syllables
in the world’s lgs.
— English: (C) (C) (C)V (C) (C) (C){C}
— Korean: (C)V(C)(C)

— Japanese: only CV syllables (except /n/ as a coda); borrowed

words are conformed to the phonotactics, the syllable
structure, of Japanese.

e.g.) • strike
/strayk/ à su-to-ra-i-ku
• merry Christmas
/me.ri krIs.məs/ à me-ri ku-ri-si-ma-su
• strawberry ice cream
/stra be.ri ays krim/ à
su-to-ro-be-ri a-i-su-ku-ri-mo
— However, consonant clusters in loanwords
do not necessarily follow the borrowing lg’s
cluster limits.
— E.g. sphere /sfir/, sphinx /sfinks/
- borrowed from Greek
- English has a constraint against two
adjacent fricatives in word-initial
position.
- exist; but sounds odd for most
speakers (e.g. spheroid, sthentic)
— Georgian (a South Caucasian lg) is the
most permissive in terms of the size of
consonant clusters they allow.
— e.g.) brt’ q’eli ‘flat’ (four consecutive Cs)
mts’vrtneli ‘trainer’ (six Cs: /ts’/ is a
single phoneme)

— e.g.) Adam Szczegielniak (my Polish friend)

— e.g.) vprog [fprok] ‘value, good’ (Russian)
1.5. Slips of the tongue and syllables
— Slipsof the tongue reveal that
speakers have a keen unconscious
awareness of the structure of the
syllable and are able to manipulate
its parts quite judiciously.
— Exchange error (i.e. Spoonerism) is one of the most
common types; it involves the exchange of one part of a
syllable for another in two different words.

E.g. onset change:

lighting a fire à fighting a liar
missed all my history lectures à
hissed all my mystery lectures
dear old queen à queera old dean
blow your nose à know your blows
take her snow pants off à snake her toe pants off

nuclei change:
ad hoc /æd hak/ à odd hack /ad hæk/
Syllable’s relevance to phonological rules:
— The aspiration rule of English
(occurring at the beginnings of stressed
syllables) provides evidence for our
unconscious knowledge of syllable
structure and the ways in which
phonological rules interact w/ them.
— account [a-khawnt], append [ə-phend]
vs.
backpack [bæk-pæk], napkin [næp-kın]
2. Stress
— The relative prominence or emphasis of
certain syllables in a word
— Various ways for achieving prominence in
world’s lgs…
— Stress: usually produced by an increase
in articulatory force, by an increase in the
airflow, and sometimes by increased
muscular tension in the articulators; result
in higher pitch, longer duration, greater
intensity in stressed syllables…
2.1. Linguistic functions of stress
— Some lgs have predictable and fixed word
stress.
— Hungarian, Finnish: stress always on the
first syllable.
— Swahili, Polish: stress always on the next-
to-last syllable.
— Such predictable stress patterns would
serve as a signal of word boundaries,
presumably aiding in lg acquisition.
— English: the position of stress is relatively free
and may also be contrastive (e.g. récord vs. recórd
(w/ change of vowels too))
— Degree of stress may be distinguished: primary,
secondary, (tertiary)
(Try rudimentary, elevator, operator, elevator operator)

English stress: - (highly) variable & mobile

- Grammatical category or
morphological structure of words
frequently affect the stress patterns.
— Stress-timed lg: the stressed syllables
occur at a fairly constant rate and the
unstressed syllables are shorter. (e.g.
English, Russian, Arabic)
-- the syllables are not similar in length.
— Syllable-time lg: Syllables are produced
at a fairly constant rate regardless of
stress (e.g. Spanish, Telugu,Yoruba, (French)).
— (1) This is the house that Jack built.
— (2) a. Dogs chase cats.
b. The dogs chase the cats.
c. The dogs will chase the cats.
d. The dogs will have chased the cats.
The dogs will be chasing the cats.
— (3) French: Il est parti sans dire au revoir.
‘He left w/o saying goodbye.’
Spanish: Bienvenido a mi casa
‘Welcome to my home.’
— Syllable stress in English is less
predictable, though it used to be quite
regular.
— Stress in OE was fixed, with primary
stress on the first syllable, but gradually
shifted away from the first syllable due
primarily to the influence of French.
— Chomsky & Halle’s (1968) rule of stress in
English (43 word-level stress rules!)
— Germanic affixes don’t affect stress placement:
éarth, éarthly, unéarthly, unéarthliness (all on ear-)
— Latinate suffixes affect stress placement:
témpest, tempéstuous, tempestuósity
grámmar, grammátical, grammaticálity

-stress-shifting afx: substance/substantial..

-stress-bearing afx: lemonade, absentee, Japanese..
-stress-neutral afx: arrival, freedom, humanist…
— Stress patterns vary across dialects of
English as well:
— Ínsurance (South AmEng) vs. insúrance
(most other dialects)
— cárburetor (AmEng) vs. carburéttor (BrEng)
wee.kend (initial stress vs. final stress)
con.tro.ver.sy (1st vs. 2nd syllable)
— Poetry in English uses stress to establish the
meter of the poem:

— 1. iambic pentameter: a common poetic

pattern in English; weak-strong, or
unstressed-stressed, pattern that is
repeated 5 times in a line of verse
(약강-약강- 약강-약강-약강)

“When I/ do count/ the clock/that tells/the time”

(Shakespeare’s Sonnet 12: 1)
— 2. dactyls: a stressed syllable followed by 2
unstressed syllables; used in children’s lg
play and nursery rhymes (강약약)

W SWW SWW SWW S

The cock’s in the woodpile a-blowing his horn.
The bull’s in the barn a-threshing of corn.
The maids in the meadows are making of hay.
The ducks in the river are swimming away.
3. Intonation
— Variation in pitch across a longer stretch of speech, an
“utterance”.
— English uses such pitch variations to convey surprise,
irony, and questioning. (speaker’s attitude to the topic
of conversation, or to the hearer, or the speaker’s
personality, or to signal grammatical features such as
whether the utterance is a question.)
— AmEng: typically rising intonation across the
utterance for yes-no questions (e.g. She bought a new
car?) and falling intonation for information-seeking
questions (i.e. wh-questions) (e.g. What does she want
to buy?)
— Much variation in both Am & Br dialects…
— Stress and intonation can interact at the
sentence level; The word-level stress
patterns and pitch can be modified to
indicate which part of the sentence is in
focus or which word should receive
special emphasis.
— In English, new & important info is
typically placed at the end of a clause;
therefore utterance stress is typically
associated w/ the end of a clause.
— Three children were sitting on the gray couch.
— “neutral” intonation means that the
utterance stress does not make any major
changes to the interpretation of the
sentence.
Accentual function of intonation

— In any given utterance, one stressed syllable,

which is called the intonation nucleus, stands
out as most prominent; this intonation nucleus
can be moved and result in meaning changes.
(interaction of the phonological systems w/
meaning (i.e. the semantic system))
— Contrastive stress:
Ø Three CHILDREN (not women, elves, men, etc.) were sitting on the
blue couch.
ØThree children were sitting on the blue COUCH (not the chair,
steps, etc.)
ØThree children were sitting on the BLUE (not the purple, gray,
black, etc.) couch.
Attitudinal function of intonation

— A fall typically signals ‘finality.’

A: Did you see the documentary on sheep last

night?
B: No (falling) (and I’m not interested).
No (rising) (but I’m interested.)

— A: Do you like my new shoes?

B: Yes. (fall-rise) (limited agreement or
agreement w/ reservation).
Yes. (rise-fall) (strong feelings of either
approval or surprise.)

à These do not change the meaning of words but change the

meaning of the utterance as a whole.
Grammatical function of intonation

— John left directions for Mary to follow.

à
à
— There is evidence that intonational contours
and patterns are stored in a distinct part of
the brain from the rest of lg
Ø brain damage to the left side of the brain (no fluent or
grammatical speech production but appropriate
intonation patterns) vs. right-hemisphere damage (Okay
utterances with a monotone)
Ø When babies who have not yet acquired any words
begin to babble at around 6 months of age, they often
utter nonsense syllables using the appropriate intonation
pattern of the language they are acquiring.
— Ludlings: children all over the world invent
and pass on these ludlings (or lg games or
secret lgs) usually to prevent understanding
by those who have not learned the lg game
— E.g. pig latin (all over the world), the
Gibberish family (US, Sweden), Verlan
(France)…
— Children’s awareness of and sophisticated
manipulation of syllables, stress, and meter
(or prosody).
— Pig latin & unconscious knowledge of
syllable structure
— Pig latin rules: to remove the initial
sounds of each word, move them to the
end of the word, and add /e/ or /ey/.
— pig latin = ig-pay atin-lay /ig-pe ætən-le/
— computer = ?
— Learn Pig Latin in 5 Minutes! - YouTube
— When the word begins w/ a C-cluster, the majority of
speakers move the whole onset:
- splash = ash-splay /æš-sple/
- plash = plash-say (variation w/ cluster
separation)
- lash = lash-spay (variation w/ cluster
separation)

à such easy manipulations of syllable structure in pig

latin as evidence for the speaker’s unconscious
knowledge of syllables and syllable structure
— Ly (another ludling): insert /li/ after each
syllable
E.g. Here-ly is-ly a-ly more-ly com-ly pli-ly
cate-ly ed-ly game-ly (‘Here is a more
complicated game.’)
• Op (insertion of /ap/ after the onset of
each syllable)
— Ubby Dubby & Abbish /Obbish illustrates
children’s knowledge of both syllables and
stress.
Ø Abbish: Insert /ab/ b/w onset and rime.
Stress is on the initial syllable:
/mábay nábem ábíz mábɔrgəbən/ (‘My
name is Morgan.’) Ubby Dubhy: Insert /əb/
b/w onset and rime. Stress is on syllable
following insertion point:
/məbáy nəbém əbíz məbɔ’rgəbə’n/
English Noun and Adjective Stress
— In disyllabics, the default stress is on the
penult. (over 80%)
e.g.) a.gent ab.sent
ba.lance a.rid
em.pire su.dden
hus.band flu.ent
… …
** It is normal to refer to syllables by counting
back from the end of a word…
(pre-antepenultimate>antepenultimate>penultimate>
ultimate)
— Exceptions to the penult rule:
(1) weightless(unstressable) penults (i.e. schwa nuclei):
stressed on the final syllable (ult) by default
e.g.) a.ppeal ba.nal
ba.lloon co.rrupt
Bra.zil re.mote
pa.ra.de sin.cere …
(2) stressable penults w/ branching
rhymes but still ult stress (real exceptions)
e.g.) re.spect mun.dane
an.tique i.mmense
ty.phoon ro.bust …
— In trisyllabic and longer nouns: stress penult if
stressable (heavy/branching rhyme); if not stressable,
then stress the next left heavy syllable…
e.g.) penult (A) antepenult(B)
to.ma.to ab.do.men
a.ro.ma al.ge.bra
di.plo.ma a.ni.mal
ho.ri.zon bu.ffa.lo
e.nig.ma co.me.dy

hi.ppo.po.ta.mus
a.po.ca.lypse
— Exceptions (below 10%)
clarinet, chimpanzee, mayonnaise (BE), gasoline…
(ß These are mostly borrowings from French and retain the
original final stresses)

• Another exception: alien, mania, period…(trisyllabic words

w/ antepenultimate stress)

• Trisyllabic or longer words (place-names): penult

stress
(e.g.Yokohama,Vienna,Venezuela, Kentucky, Seattle…)
…
…
Exercise:
—cloth /klɔθ/ - clothing /kloðıŋ/
bath /bæθ/ - bathing /beðıŋ/
north /nɔrθ/ - northern /nɔrðərn/
à Focus on the consonant change.
— sign-signature
resign-resignation
malign-malignant

damn-damnation
hymn-hymnal
solemn-solemnity
bomb-bombard

à
— There are both vowel and consonant
alternations in the following data set.
Describe the relevant consonant
alternation in words.
critic(al) criticism
medical medicine
opaque opacity
analogue analogy
regal regicide
— The English suffix –en combines with adjectives to
create verbs with a causative meaning (‘cause to
become X’). However, there are many adjectives
with which –en cannot combine. The –en
suffixation is subject to a phonological constraint.
Figure out the constraint, considering both
syllable structure and quality of the final sound.

(i) Acceptable: whiten, soften, madden, quicken, liven

(ii) Unacceptable: *abstracten, *bluen, *angryen,
*slowen, *greenen